This month marks a year since I last had sex. It's not necessarily for any religious reason, I'm not abstinent and haven't taken any special vow. Homegirl is just out of commission, and quite frankly in need of a tune-up. But according to Cam Newton, taking a break from sex can actually help you level up your grind (pun intended).
Intermittent celibacy is the name of the game for this 29-year-old quarterback and father of three who says that not having sex ultimately boosted his productivity. I don't know much about sports, but I do know that a lot of hard work, both mentally and physically, is done in the off-season. Last month, he explained to James Corden on the Late Late Show:
"Every month in this off-season I've tried to challenge myself in a different way."
For example, in January, Cam decided that he would give gambling a break and avoid placing any bets. In February, the football star gave up his pescatarian lifestyle to go vegan for 28 days, and in March, he gave himself a different kind of challenge, one that he hopes will take him all the way to the Super Bowl. Cam Newton says that giving up sex was hard, but it also felt rewarding AF. He said:
"I'm going through a transition right now. I wanted it to be challenging."
I think we all feel a sense of accomplishment when we achieve a goal we didn't think we would reach, and this is Cam's sole reason for his method of intermittent celibacy.
"When the season comes around, it makes my mind stronger. I feel like if I look up and said I did those things, it makes me mentally stronger."
Fasting or abstaining from the things we want is a practice that has been used for decades, usually for political or religious reasons, but Cam's case is quite different. While there is no scientific evidence that abstaining from orgasms is beneficial, the Carolina Panthers quarterback says that the last 31 days have changed his life in ways he couldn't have imagined.
"Those 31 days have changed my life in ways that I never probably would have even expected. I felt stronger mentally as well as physically. Felt clean. I just see things differently."
By Cam's account, this method is the Panther's ticket to the Super Bowl and he believes in it so much, that he invited his teammates to join in on the challenge.
"It has changed my life in incredible ways. And that's why I'm doing a Carolina Panthers celibacy Super Bowl challenge. I am gonna challenge everybody on my team to not have no climax for the whole football season."
Hmm. So is edging out of the picture? I'm not quite sure how these athletes' wives will feel about this, but, carry on…
"It's going to be trying but it will be worth it. We'll have a lot of focus. So get ready everybody. This is about to be the Carolina Panthers' year. It gotta be. Or one of the wives is gonna kill me."
To be honest, there's nothing NOT to love about an orgasm. In addition to lowering stress levels, relieving headaches, and reducing the risk of heart attacks, they're downright enjoyable. But maybe, like Cam, the key to reaching your maximum potential of productivity is locking your box every now and then.
Although this is a type of pseudoscience I can't quite buy into, sometimes when you believe something works, it actually will. However you choose to challenge yourself in your off-season, it's definitely worth a try!
Featured image by Leon Bennett/Getty Images for The Players' Tribune
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Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak